Critical Period for Forming Bicultural Identity

Introduction:

Searching for one’s identity has always been baffling for some Japanese returnees,
especially if one was exposed to a second culture during the critical period of acquiring
cultural sense of values.

After spending constant period of time as a Japanese

expatriate, not a few Japanese returnees perceive the differences in cultures between
Japan and the second country.

When “kikokushijos”, the returnees, go back to theirhome country, they get mentally ill because for one reason when acting upon thefeelings of the second culture, kikokushijos find it complicated to get along with theclassmates and eventually feel left out. They feel that Japan is greatly different fromwhat they have expected.

This phenomenon is called a “culture shock”, and after theyexperience the culture shock, returnees naturally get confused of their own identities.
Going through several emotional stages, the returnees end up by confirming that they
belong to: Japan, the country they sojourned in (monocultural), or the both countries(bicultural).

Being bicultural means assimilating two cultures. That is, one must beable to understand, accept, and accommodate the difference between the customs,manners, values, and people in two cultures, realizing that one is acting differently
1based on the culture he/she is in.

Considering myself as an example, I had spent six

years living near San Francisco, from age eight to fourteen, and I affirm that I am
bicultural.

To prove more specifically, from the moment I step in the United States, I

would be more frank, self-asserting, and express myself more explicitly than I am inJapan.

On the other hand, in Japan I act more fitting and use expressions that isintimating.

However, my core personality is the same in both cultures.

optimistic, and active.

I am friendly,

It is apparent that my sojourn in the United States had caused

my biculturalism, however, not all the Japanese returnees who have been abroad feelthat they have bicultural identity.

My underlying concern and the purpose of this study

is to find out the significance of the age and the period spent in the other culture towardbiculturalism.

Is there a critical period for forming bicultural identity? I decided toanswer this question by doing research and making a questionnaire.

Literature Review:

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of studies have been conducted in thefield of bicultural identity Yasuko Minoura states “On the level of cultural adjustment,
while the child at age nine acknowledges behavioral differences between cultures, they2

do not perceive differences in ‘cultural grammar’ at that age.

By age elevendissonances in cultural grammar is felt, and by age thirteen children will generally notdiscard previously-acquired cultural grammar even if they change behavioral patterns.”(Minoura, 1979) in her PhD. dissertation entitled “Life in Between”.

To sum up

Minoura’s theory, Minoura presumes that children who spend in the second culture
during the age between nine and thirteen will somehow cognate the difference between
culture and culture, and this indirectly shows the importance of age and period forbecoming bicultural.

On the level of the formation of the bicultural identities, Richard

Brislin and Tomoko Yoshida explains the stages returnees proceed by using Milton
Bennett’s model.(Brislin, Yoshida, 1994)

Bennett (Bennet,1986) presents the six

stages people go through: denial, defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, andintegration.

Becoming bicultural means that one is at the level of integration.

After

pointing out Bennet’s theory, Brislin and Yoshida also provides the notion of Third
Culture Kids (TCKs), originally presented by Ussem (1973).

To quote Yoshida, TCKs

are “children who are now or once were dependents of adults with extended overseas
job assignments”, which is a typical case for a Japanese returnee.

TCKs are normally

exposed to their parents’ cultures at home and Hoshukos (Japanese schools), and thehost-country culture outside of their homes, resulting the integration of the two cultures3and forming a bicultural identity.

Naoko Tani purports in her article “PsychologicalDevelopment of the Bicultural Self-Concept: A Theoretical Perspective” (1995) that theexperience and personality dominates the two major role in the matter of second-cultureacquisition.

She too shares the psychological development model introduced byLaFromboise, Coleman and Gerton (1993) which includes five stages: assimilation,acculturation, alternation, multiculturalism, and fusion.

Yasuko Kanno also introduces

a simple model based on the stories of Japanese returnees with three stages: sojourn,reentry, and reconciliation. (Kanno, 2003)

Referring to the data, Kanno professes thatin order to go through all three stages, Japanese returnees must spend a constant amountof period at a certain age.

Otherwise, the returnees cannot experience “defense” or“minimization” if they are too young to form the first culture’s identity and “reentry” or“fusion” if they are too old to be a high school student and have already concreted theiridentity.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to say that age and period spent in the second

culture have strong bond with biculturalism.

Methodology:

To inquire the critical period for forming bicultural identity, I decided to collect data by4

creating a questionnaire.

The questionnaire included the following: interpretation ofbiculturalism, question no.1- do you feel that you have a bicultural identity (Graph1),question no.2a- how long were you exposed to the second culture, question no.2bbetween what ages did you spend your time in the second culture? The participants inthis survey were the members in the Japanese returnee community on the internet.

Inthe social network system web site called mixi, (http://www.mixi.jp) there are over
1,000,000 members registered and 400,000 communities.

There are 3,755 members(to date 01/09/06) who belong to the Kikokushijo Community.

I sent ninety messages

to the Japanese returnees who were registered in by using real names in order to receive
more trustable, accurate responses.

I made a data using spreadsheets, separated thereplies who answered yes and no for question no.1 (Graph2, Graph3).

Then, I added

the period of time in the second culture for each sample I received; i.g.8-14 on the side.
Next to the period, I put the length of time the Japanese returnees sojourned in thesecond culture; i.g.6 years.

After sorting all the data, I compared the informants whoanswered yes for question no.1 (bicultural or not) and the period and years to theMinoura model, and checked if Minoura’s theory apply for typical Japanese returnees.
In the end, I analyzed the data and embossed the critical period for forming bicultural
identity.

5

Results:The following results were obtained.

Out of the ninety messages I sent to the Japanese

returnee members of the Kikokushijo Community, I gained fifty five replies.
questions were answered correctly.

All of theAs for question no.1 (do you feel bicultural?),thirty nine informants answered yes, while sixteen answered no.

The average of thelength of time living in the second culture for members who answered yes was 7.45
years, and 4.19 years for returnees who answered no. To verify the authenticity of
Minoura’s model, I compared the period of time the informants who percept themselves
as having a bicultural identity to Minoura’s theory, and discovered that out of thirty nine
informants, thirty four of them were exposed to the second culture for at least two years
between age nine and thirteen.

Concerning the returnees who did not conceive

themselves as being bicultural, eleven out of sixteen informants did not spend any timein the second culture at the age between nine and thirteen.

I combined two data andfigured that Minoura’s theory has eighty one percent of accuracy according to myresults.

As for tendency, I separated the period of time sojourned in the second culture

in five age stages: Ages 0-6,6-9,9-12,12-15, and 15-18.

6Then I classified the data outand counted one for returnees who spent at least two years in an age stage.

For

example, a person who spent from 10-14 would be counted as one for both 9-12 and12-15 stages.

I found out that Japanese kikokushijos who did not recognize

themselves as people having bicultural identity tend to have spent their time abroad atthe stages between 0-6 and 15-18.

The utmost gap I saw in the period of time spent

between returnees with bicultural identities and monocultural identities is at the stage
between 9-12.

On the grounds of the data, it is suggestible that the critical period

for forming bicultural identity is from age nine to twelve.

Conclusion

Wading through this research, I found out that there were several points which implied
how to become bicultural.

As far as on the period of time level, I feel that unlike

acquiring a language, acquiring a culture start from latter age.

One must be able tospeak and communicate with people in order to experience the culture he/she isimmersed in.

And integrating the second culture needs the first culture to bond

together, so I assume that the starting line for forming bicultural identity is at least few
years later than the first language acquisition.

7

This logic reflects the great number ofpeople spending time in the second culture between 0-6 who answered they did notthink they were bicultural.

For the 15-18 stage also, the result shows that a greaternumber of people exposed to the second culture at that age answered they were notbicultural than they were.

The reason is because from the middle of adolescence, thereturnees had already crystallized their first culture, and won’t grant the second cultureso easily.

Scientifically, the adolescents are in their rebellious stages, too. Taking alook at the remained three stages, the numbers tell us that the biggest gap is found at theage 9-12 stage. Therefore, numerically and logically, the critical period for forming thebicultural identity is at the stage of 9-12.

Discussion & Further research

A few questions remained in this research, concerning the trustfulness of informants andnumber of samples.

I tried my best to gain confiding samples, since generally thepeople who register in social network system are said to be truthful.

Theacquaintances of mine which is over one hundred register as their real names with realidentity.

I also made the questionnaire simple with only three questions to ask and one

paragraph for explaining the term “bicultural” so more receivers will respond with8

accurate answers.

As for number of samples, I feel I did the best I could, even though

it is obvious that more number of samples is better for getting precise results.
There are more further research can be done on critical period for forming biculturalidentity.

One is to do same research in wider range.

For example, the questionnaires

were sent to Japanese returnees only, so it is possible to obtain various results withvarious returnees in other countries.

Also, applying this research to the older people

remains as a matter to be researched.

Factors such as personality of a returnee or theenvironment the returnee was exposed to the second culture affects the formation of thebicultural identity.

It is suggestible to do a research relating that topic.

In the future,

I suppose returnees have chance to understand the notion of the biculturalism in theearly age, so they do not need to suffer when on their return to their home country.

Reference Citation

Brislin, Richard, and Yoshida, Tomoko. 1994. Intercultural Communication Training:
An Introduction. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Kanno, Yasuko, 2000. Kikokushijo as bicu-ltural. Elsevier Science Ltd.
Kanno, Yasuko, 2003. Negotiating Bilingual and Bicultural Identities. London:

9Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Minoura, Yasuko, 1979. Life in Between.
Tani, Naoko, 1995. Psychological Development of the Bicultural Self-Concept: A
Theoretical Perspective. Kansai Gakuin University.
Tani, Naoko, 1996. Dreamwork, Language, and Cultural Mindsets: A New Agenda for
Bicultural Self Construal Research. Kansai Gakuin University.
Yoshida, Kensaku, 1999. Multilingulaism Multiculturalism and the Problem of Identity.
Available from World Wide Web: (http://pweb.sophia.ac.jp/~yoshida-k/biculutural.htm)

Appendix

Graph1. Do you feel bicultural?

Do you feel bicultural?

No, 16, 29%YesYes, 39, 71%

10No

Graph2. Period of time for participants who answered “No” in Question 1.

"No" Period of Time
72-4 years

64-6 years

54

Number of People

0-2 years

326 years&up

10
0-2 years

2-4 years

4-6 years

6 years&up

Graph3. Period of time for participants who answered “Yes” in Question 1.

"Yes" Period of Time14
6-8 years, 121210

4-6 years, 92-4 years, 8

810 years&up, 5

68-10 years, 5

4
20

2
0-0-2 years, 0sarey42-sarey64-sarey86-sarey108-

11sarey10p&u
sarye

Number of People